Talking points from talking heads

Do you enjoy being subject to someone else's history? Do you like feeling alienated and having the tops of fingers beneath your eyes? Do you ever wish someone else could think/breathe/eat/sing/walk/scream/love/laugh for you? Fret not, you are nearly there. Just a few more crises of moral significance. 

I cannot make up my mind on the new JEW album. Obviously, it does not stand up to the previous two albums, those are difficult to top by any means. After the near-progressiveness of Futures, Chase This Light seems like a step back. It lacks the sinister brooding of songs like "Pain" and "Night Drive." However, there still are some definite standout tracks that I already am listening to repeatedly ("Electable" is the main one at the moment). I think I still need a few more listens to truly make up my mind on the album. It simply does not feel like it has the staying power of Bleed American and Futures, at least not thus far. 

So much for the guerilla-art that was Nuit Blanche. When Scotiabank sinks a ton of cash into the event and over-expands it, it is not surprising that it was packed with jerks, mostly lackluster exhibits and an underlying commerciality. Ah well, still a fun night. 

I cannot help but feel that there is no higher ground anymore and if you claim that there is and you are standing upon it then you are simply claiming your own superiority and are actually digging a hole in the elevated ground you are supposedly standing on. Thoughts do not have commas, periods, semi-colons, colons, etc. It is one run-on sentence that starts (I would assume) once you are born and ends (I would assume) only when you die but not with a period it just stops suddenly in the middle of (or end or beginning or 3/4 of the way through) the page. 

The enemy is you as well.

The enemy is I. 

JEW - Chase This Light

Varying degrees of self-reliance

Bow before 2007 Polaris Music Prize winner Patrick Watson. He is the second coming of Sam Roberts (visually at least....his music is actually 875.69% better than that of Roberts). Just as Sam Roberts discards of the beard that made him so scruffily adorable (in exchange for more adult contemporary notoriety...there is an entirely different music world that exists in the ad-con [my slang for "adult contemporary] bubble of MuchMoreMusic...a place where Sarah McLachlan is still putting out albums and James Blunt is considered more than just background music for Grey's Anatomy) Patrick Watson emerges, bearded and all.

Last July, I was so overanxious to see Emily Haines in all her splendour (and believe me, there is a LOT of splendour emitted from Ms. Haines....I think she sweats it out and it smells like incense, but not the cheap kind that Jamaican guys try to sell you in Kensington, I mean the good stuff) that I nearly overlooked opener Watson in lieu of my forward-thinking erection for Haines' set. In retrospect, Watson was fantastic and now I feel like a jerk for only saying so after his winning the Polaris. Fie on me! Fie!

His fantastic album Close To Paradise evokes a certain dreamy similarity to Coldplay's Parachutes album. It is soft music that has an underlying edge, like a butterknife that can still be used for murder, or at least can cut through a tough steak. As well, he incorporates a fantastic wall of sound, layering theramin, strings, horns, organ, accordian, and soforth. 

Interestingly, after reading his wikipedia page, it turns out that Watson had a song featured on Grey's Anatomy. Should I swallow my tongue for my bracketed jab at James Blunt now? Is my own brand of medicine (Ian's Cervix Serum) delicious? Well, fuck James Blunt, high-voiced scoundrel that he is. Yes, I know, he was a NATO "peacekeeper" (that term is questionable when you're a soldier wielding an AK-47) and I should cut him some slack and rub his balls or something. Well, NATO's mission in Kosovo was misguided and "You're Beautiful" sucks giant wang. So fuck that. 

Watson's album is fantastic for a rainy day such as this (or if you're in Korea, everyday). Enjoy. 

Close To Paradise

This persistence of existence

Alterable, malleable. 

Preconceived storylines. 

We're malleable as we stretch across our timeframes, ever-expanding. Taking up more and more space, intellectual or otherwise. 

I'm taking up so much space with my thoughts. Wrinkled brow. Itchy beard. Thinning hair. Released follicles are tension release. Clogged drain. I'll drown not in my sorrow (how poetic! If only...), but simply bath-water that is ever-rising, rejected by the follicled drain. 

Oh boo-fucking-hoo. I'm actually relatively at ease now. 

It's just the room, the sun, and the sky. I like to follow the Harvard School of grammar and utilize that extra comma before the "and" in a list. It is my little effort to uphold a dying grammatical breed. I like the idea of writing that is conscious of itself, commenting on the very manner in which it exists upon the page (or screen). Kind of like a lamer, internet-based John Barth.

I have included a Silversun reference somewhere in this blog. Enjoy the album. 

I look back on the various events in my life: my europe trip with pup, my car accident, my grandfather's death (and the preceding three years of sorrow), androo blowing out the candles on my 7th birthday, when I saw Brand New play Deja Entendu from start to finish, discovering Casa del Popolo, crying myself to sleep because I felt alone and afraid I would die feeling that way, staying overnight by myself in the hospital when I was 4, getting Nintendo, watching my father nearly bleed to death, realizing I was in love and not knowing how I got there but happy that I was there, waking up and hating life, waking up to sunshine and a day that is completely mine and loving life, and that time when blah blah etcetera. Anyway, I look back at these and can only wonder if I was more alive then than I am now. But, as Peter, Bjorn and John (find their enjoyable album attached...and notice the lack of that last comma in their name) would put it, "I laugh more often now, I cry more often now, I am more me." I'm still in the process of figuring out who "me" is, but I have a better idea now than I did all those nights I cried myself to sleep and dropped my stuffed animals down the stairs in desperation. 

Silversun Pickups

P, B, and J - Writer's Block

I quiver with each of your technological advances

As I read about Canada's good financial fortunes today, I realized the pitfalls of a Western economy. The structure of taxation that has its roots firmly planted is one that brainwashes us to be consumers. Instead of heavy taxation of one's income--a punishment for earning a living--why not tax the overconsumption of goods, especially those that are harmful to the environment? Eh? Eh?

Guess who has male pattern baldness? ME! Guess who was prescribed Propecia today by his doctor? ME! My life is slowly becoming a Propecia commercial. I already asked my doctor about it, as they suggest I do in the ad. Then after picking up my prescription (and shelling out 200 bucks...that's right, my drugplan doesn't cover it!) I went and lived my life to the fullest. I had dinner with my wife, I tossed the football around with my son in the backyard while wearing my newly purchased corduroy J. Crew jacket, and then I finally buried that dead hooker that's been sitting in the trunk of my Lexus (my wife would only buy the "It's compost I've been cultivating in the trunk" excuse for so long). Initially I was rather despondent when Dr. Phillipson told me (in his soft, sweet South African accent...awwww) that I did indeed have male pattern baldness and I could thank my father for it--the whole "You get your hair fortunes from your maternal grandfather" thing is bullshit, by the way. I just wanted to sob under a willow tree. Then everything was better when I was told by the pharmacist that I would have to pay for the Propecia all on my own. Actually, wait, that worsened the despondency. I wanted a stiff drink. Or a stiff penis. Or a stiff drink stirred by a stiff penis. Yes, that's it. 

Well, I read the little instructions that came with Propecia and I was suddenly enlightened and in a better mood. I put down my drink, pulled the penis from out of my mouth, and continued my life as Propecia would like me to: I washed the car and waved to the neighbors. Propecia not only stops hair loss, it actually can help you grow back some of the hair you lost. It takes about two months to fully kick in, so by then I'll know if I want to transplant some of my bum hair onto my head. You'd think the prospect of a poo-smelling head would discourage me, but it does not. 

I then began to take some advice Michael Ian Black (find a link to download his hilarious new comedy album enclosed) gave to heart: just add an exaggerated "Yayyyyy" to the end of any misfortune or negative statement and it suddenly becomes positive. Male pattern baldness, yayyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

MIB-I am  wonderful Man

de facto Terminalization

Yes, time slips away. Through our fingers, we're caught in a perpetual state of losing time. It's probably all over the floor and we're stepping on innocent little seconds and minutes and hours and days that have seeped their way through the crevices between our fingers. I thought I was grasping so firmly. I suppose I thought incorrectly.

I was under the impression that I worked at 8am today, which essentially caused me to structure my day (in my new dayplanner! Woweeeeee) in a very precise manner:
-Work 8-5. The End.
No no, there is more...
-Go to parents house after work, get digital camera and laundry. Perhaps say a casual "hello" to my parents if time permits. Otherwise, nod as I walk out the door.
-Finally transfer the necessary funds between accounts to pay my soul-crushing (or is it soul-searching?) tuition.
-Have all this done by 9pm and then go out and do pretentious hipster things

However, today I threw all my time on the floor and stomped on it with rubber soles. Now it's warped. Not a time warp (like the song from Rocky Horror) – rather, warped time. I actually have to work from 1-10. I realized this once I was already at work. So, I left that wretched environment and its flourescent bulbs, white walls (it might as well be an asylum) and in an attempt to restructure my day, am now at my parents house. Live fast, have no regrets. Fuck off. I regret stopping off at this suburban land-mine. Yes, a suburban land-mine. I have to watch my step, for at any moment I could step upon dangerous territory and be blown to bits (verbally at least) by Walter, who's been overly touchy and overly cruel lately to compensate. Well, I didn't realize that I could step in a mine while remaining stationary in front of the coffee maker, brewing a delicious mixture of Tim Hortons fine ground and Second Cup butter pecan coffees.

As I ran to make my escape and ensure my limbs are still connected to by body, I stepped into another north of civilization (see "suburbs") land-mine. However, this one looked like a cross between a mountain lion and Robert Plant circa 1972. It was Marcy, who stumbled out of bed like a recovering anti-depressant addict (actually, it's tranquilizers) upon hearing the commotion between Walter and myself. I managed to send her back to the lion's den rather easily however and avert disaster in a shaken room....or hallway.

Now let us pray.

Rather, prey. On the innocent and naïve who actually pray. Delicious.